Title: Lelia Bascom Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1815-1968

Creator:

• Bascom, Lelia, 1875-1968

Call Number: Mss 957; PH Mss 957

Quantity: 1.0 cubic foot (2 archives boxes and 1 half-archives box), 0.2 cubic feet of photographs (1 folder and 1 oversize folder)
Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Abstract:

Papers of Lelia Bascom, a University of Wisconsin professor, Quaker social activist, and Madison civic leader, largely relating to her interest in the Bascom family. Included are fragmentary correspondence of her father William Russel Bascom and other members of the family, photographs, a narrative genealogy of the Russel Bascom family, and genealogical notes. In addition there is personal correspondence received during her final years and volumes recording expenditures for clothing, charitable donations, and other personal items over a 50-year period.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00957

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Lelia Bascom, University of Wisconsin associate professor of English and a relative of former University president John Bascom, was born March 31, 1875 in Bloomington, Illinois, a daughter of William Russel Bascom and Abby Hovey Bascom. She attended public schools at Bloomington, Dubuque, Iowa, and Chicago. In 1898 she entered the University of Wisconsin, graduating in 1902 as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. After graduation she taught English at high schools at Escanaba, Michigan (1902-1904); Ft. Morgan, Colorado (1904-1906); Menomonie, Wis. (1906-1908, including part-time at Stout Institute); and Madison Central High School (1908-1909). She became an instructor of English at the University in 1909, completing her M.A. in 1911. Bascom taught one year "on the hill" and then turned her attention full time to correspondence instruction. She was promoted to associate professor in 1927. From 1912 to 1917 she lectured in evening classes at the YWCA on contemporary literature, and for two years she taught English as a second language. During World War I she taught methods of instruction to foreigners at the University Extension in Milwaukee and Racine. With Ward Lyon of the U.S. Navy, she originated a series of lessons in English for Italian-speaking immigrants. Her Elementary Lessons in English Idiom was published in 1920. In 1925 Bascom taught English at the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Industrial Women.

An active member of the Religious Society of Friends, Bascom also served many other civic organizations including the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the YWCA, the League of Women Voters, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the Congress of Racial Equality, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She was also chair of the Madison Civics Club, president of the Century Club, first president of the Madison Business and Professional Women's Club, president of the WILPF, and an appointive member of the Dane County Board of Supervisors (1925-1926). Bascom retired in 1940 and died at the Dane County Hospital and Home in 1968.

The Lelia Bascom Papers primarily document her interest in Bascom family history. Information about her professional career and years of service to various social action organizations in Madison is absent from the collection. Also useful are detailed expense records that she maintained from 1909 through the 1950s.

The papers are arranged alphabetically by subject.

Concerning the Bascom family the papers include "A Genealogical Record of the Russel Bascom Family," a narrative history she compiled in 1949. In addition there are a few photographs and a folder of family correspondence. The majority of this consists of letters from her father, William Russel Bascom, an employee of the Illinois Central Railroad, to his mother. This correspondence dates from the 1860s to the 1890s, and it primarily concerns family life and his religious views. Also present are extensive genealogical notes and a Spanish language primer written in Mexico by Burton Bascom, Jr.

Lelia Bascom's own correspondence primarily consists of cards and letters received during the last year of her life, and a few letters about her received by Professor Francis Hole, who apparently administered the Bascom memorial fund established by the Madison Friends. These letters are the best source in the collection for understanding Bascom's position in the community. The correspondence to Bascom includes some letters from relatives and one printed Christmas letter from Walter and Mary Jo Uphoff.

The annual expense ledgers date from 1909, when she was a young teacher, through the 1950s. The ledgers record individual expenditures within broad categories such as clothing, entertainment, car fare, etc. During the World War I period she inventoried her winter and summer wardrobes in these volumes, and later she began recording detailed information about her charitable donations. Complementing the expense volumes is a 1912 scrapbook of clippings and handwritten information that document her interest in economical housekeeping.

Several folders document Bascom's general interests such as aging and travel in England. Of special interest, although its presence is not fully explained by internal evidence, is information and floor plans she collected on low cost housing during the 1940s.

A 1932 edition of Bascom's Elementary Lessons in English Idiom is available in the University of Wisconsin Memorial Library collection. The Wisconsin Historical Society Library holds a copy of Bascom's Genealogical Account of the Descendants of William Russel Bascom.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Lelia Bascom, Madison, Wis., 1949, 1958-1959; Francis D. Hole, 1976; the Society of Friends via Eldon Kelley, 1976; and Lea Heine, 1981.

Bascom family -- GenealogyWomen -- Social conditionsFinancial recordsGenealogiesPhotographsScrapbooksManuscript collection

Mss 957 Box   1   Folder   1	Aging
	Correspondence
Box   1   Folder   2	Lelia Bascom, 1967-1968
Box   1   Folder   3	Bascom Family, 1815-1949
Box   1   Folder   4-7	Expense records, 1909-1958
Box   2   Folder   1	Genealogy of Russel Bascom, 1949
Box   2   Folder   2	Genealogical notes
Box   3   Folder   1-2	Genealogical notes (continued)
Box   2   Folder   3	Housing information
PH Mss 957 Folder   1	Photographs
Oversize folder   1	Oversize
Mss 957 Box   2   Folder   4	Primer by Burton Bascom
Box   2   Folder   5	Scrapbook, 1912
Box   2   Folder   6	Travel in England